Three key technological breakthroughs to be featured in the upcoming Honor View 20 have been revealed in Hong Kong today. The Honor View 20 will feature the world’s first in-display camera – the same thing we’re expecting to see on the Samsung Galaxy S10 next year – as well as a 48MP main camera and what Honor is calling Link Turbo, which combines Wi-Fi and LTE signals to boost download speeds.

The successor to the View 10 is expected to be announced globally in Paris on January 22, but Honor is clearly eager to get in on the in-screen camera hype a little early.

Honor View 20 in-display camera

A 4.5mm diameter circular peephole sits in the upper left of the View 20 LCD display, allowing the front-facing camera to sit beneath and see through the screen. While this solution doesn’t afford much more usable screen space when compared to a small dewdrop notch, it does provide a less visually intrusive solution to the more common – and widely disliked – wedge-shaped notch. Of course, you won’t find any additional sensors here, just the camera.

Honor claims that by “using a special design, it maintains the structure of the display while allowing the front camera to function properly,” emphasizing that “the hole is not a traditional hole.” The Huawei Nova 4, shown below, features the same kind of screen, so check out the video for a glimpse of how it will look. As soon as we get a chance to go hands-on with the View 20’s display we’ll be sure to bring you more details.

In typical one-upmanship fashion, Honor makes sure to note that the peephole adopted by “other industry players” measures 6mm in diameter, pointing out that its peephole reduces the overall area by 42 percent. For those of you keeping track of the size of your peephole notches: be advised.

Honor View 20 48MP Sony IMX586 sensor

The Honor View 20 will also debut the world’s first 48MP camera on a smartphone, assuming Xiaomi doesn’t get there first. The Sony IMX586 is a half-inch stacked CMOS sensor with 48 MP resolution and 0.8-micron pixel size. The Quad Bayer array uses a process called pixel binning to combine the light data from four adjacent pixels in low light situations, allowing the Honor View 20 to create brighter 12MP images with less noise.

The Kirin 980‘s dual-NPU and dual-ISP means the Honor View 20 gets an image processing bump as well. According to Honor, the View 20’s image processing has improved 134 percent – presumably since the View 10 – and camera processing has improved by 46 percent. Honor is also spruiking the benefits of 48MP AI HDR on the View 20. You can see some example shots taken with the IMX586 below and another one here.

Honor View 20 Link Turbo

Lastly, Link Turbo combines Wi-Fi and LTE signals to provide even faster download speeds. It’s basically the same thing Samsung was doing way back on the Galaxy S5 with Download Booster. Link Turbo leverages AI and big data to analyze network conditions and figure out the best way to deliver an optimal result. Switching from one signal to the other will a seamless operation so gamers won’t suffer any headaches while streaming.

The Huawei Nova 4, which also features a peephole camera in the display, is also expected to arrive in the not-too-distant future. With Huawei, Honor and Samsung already pegged to announce devices with in-screen cameras in the first months of 2019, the notched present we’ve been begrudgingly dealing with for the last year or so already appears to be ending. Considering some in-display fingerprint scanners from Goodix already use a camera that peeps through a hole in the display without the need for a notch, it’s only a matter of time until front-facing cameras get there too.